It isn't that any US oil
company would say “no” to Iraq contracts if the situation shaped
up there and contracts came their way. But Iraq is a mess right now,
and is there is no security—political, legal or physical—to
guarantee a return on a multi-billion dollar investment. It's
unlikely that any of these companies asked for this invasion because
they all prize stability—the stability of contractual
arrangements, of a regular return on capital, of not getting their
employees killed and their equipment blown up—above nearly
anything else. Even the stability guaranteed by very nasty
governments. Dealing with the “devil,” whatever headgear it wears,
is pretty common in the oil business.

But there is an oil component to the invasion and occupation, and
I believe it is this: the United States, through invading and
occupying a nation with significant oil reserves, would show the
world especially the up-and-coming consuming nations of China and
India—that in the event that push comes to shove, and this
resource gets scarce, Americans come first.

A very interesting article on oil production and the predicted “oil
peak,” which is that peak oil production after which it's all downhill, may
be a myth after all. There are differing types of crude oil—some are
easier to obtain gasoline from (and when you hear the price of a barrel of
oil quoted, it's that type of oil—the most expensive, sought
after type) than others (which are cheaper by barrel, but more expensive to
extract gasoline from).

It also goes into some details about oil refinery and NIMBYism of the US that I was unaware of:

Recently, Aramco offered to build and pay for two brand new
refineries in the US to
help meet that demand on the condition that someone else obtain all
the necessary environmental permits first or that the federal, state
and local governments involved fast-track the process and protect it
from legal challenges. It was a generous, unrealizable, and
extremely cynical, offer.

(Does anyone remember how funny it was 20 years ago when we all
learned that Cuban soldiers fighting on behalf of the Marxist
government of Angola were guarding the Chevron concession—the
concession that earned Angola the hard currency to pay for those
troops?)

A few years ago the left-wing government of Angola employed Cuban
troops to defend US oil
refineries against a Maoist revolutionary supported by the Reagan
Administration. It's hard to be politically correct when the world
starts to look like “Monty Python's flying Circus.”

Anyway, I'm bullish on energy futures and the resourcefulness (or
despiration, take your pick) of us humans. I for one would like to see
nuclear energy used more here (the pebble bed reactor
design is quite safe actually) with less dependance on oil for energy
production.

I've never hid the fact that I have an online journal (or blog—I'm not
entirely sure of the difference myself) but I've never really gone out of my
way to announce it at work, given
some of the stories I've read about (even Mark was affected by a
previous job—that's why he no longer blogs).

“Sean,” C, my boss, said, “about your blog … ”

Uh oh, I thought.

“Could you change my pseudonym?”

“Excuse me?”

“I don't want to be known as simply ‘C,’” said C. “I'd
rather you use ‘Smirk.’”

Congress extended copyright an additional twenty-five hundred
years. Spike Greenbaum owed every dollar she had made to Israel,
because St. Jerome's translation was based on Hebrew sacred texts.
To use the Bible, all Catholics became Jewish, and Disney bought the
rights to the Iliad and the Odyssey.

And everyone was content, except for the storytellers who had to
buy a Disney license or prove that their work did not owe anything
to any story that had ever been part of human civilization.

Talk then turned towards having other translations available, and I said
that yes, I wanted to have multiple versions, but I've yet to come across
another translation that was in the public domain. Talk then turned towards
intellectual property issues in general, and copyright in specifics and how
things are going crazy here.

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing
for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to
their respective writings and discoveries;

The Constitution of the United States, Article
I, Section 8, clause 8

“Limited time.” Yeah, that's a good one.

And if things keep going they way they are, this little story might just
end up being true.

I personally wouldn't mind seeing copyright terms being the original 14
years, plus an optional 14 year extension (and if that was the case today,
my
humor column would now be in the public domain instead of the
pseudo-copyright-limbo that it's in right now) but short of the total
collapse of Disney I don't see that happening any time soon.

After writing my last entry I was curious to see if FAU still
had a school newspaper. The one I wrote for,
the Atlantic Sun, imploded due to a scandal involving funding from the
Student Government—basically, the administration became critical of the
solely run student newspaper and forced it from campus; the Student
Government then turned around and gave the equipment (which belonged to
FAU) and lots of
money (which belonged to FAU or the students, depending on who you believe)
to the former editorial staff so they could open up an student run newspaper
off campus. There was a lot of controversey whether the Student Government
had the right to do that.

This was also around the time that the Student Government nearly
imploded—the Student President resigned under somewhat suspicious
activities along with the Student Senate Speaker. Then the Judial Branch
declared the recently held elections invalid which prompted the Sentate to
start impeachment proceedings against all the Justices. So if the election
was held to be invalid and the Justices were all impeached, then
the Student Government would have ended up being a Vice President (who would
have been the President at that point), three Senators and no Judical Branch
at all.

Obligatory Miscellaneous

You have my permission to link freely to any entry here. Go
ahead, I won't bite. I promise.

The dates are the permanent links to that day's entries (or
entry, if there is only one entry). The titles are the permanent
links to that entry only. The format for the links are
simple: Start with the base link for this site: http://boston.conman.org/, then add the date you are
interested in, say 2000/08/01,
so that would make the final URL:

You may also note subtle shading of the links and that's
intentional: the “closer” the link is (relative to the
page) the “brighter” it appears. It's an experiment in
using color shading to denote the distance a link is from here. If
you don't notice it, don't worry; it's not all that
important.

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